Question for the HR folks that post on HF, I think
@Gurglesons is in this category. I applied for a position in DC that I didn't meet the years of experience and educational requirements for (wanted a PhD with 5 years of experience, I'm at a Master's with 3 years of experience), but I did hear back from them and had an interview with someone from their hiring department. They mentioned a few times in the interview that I didn't hit the educational requirements, but they were impressed because my work experience was extremely related to what they wanted. I confidently said I was a 8 or 9 out of 10 on the somewhat niche software that they were looking for experience with for the position, which is a true statement. They mentioned they would submit my "scorecard" to the hiring manager and the hiring manager would decide if they wanted to go forward with an interview.
My question is this, will the hiring manager actually care whether I have a PhD and 5 years of work experience or not, or is that just a HR hurdle that I've already gone through? The hiring person I talked to also told me to apply to other positions I may see that I like, which makes me think he really likes my resume but doesn't think I'm qualified for this position, but that may be me reading too much into this.